Reading is a useful activity for education, self-improvement, relaxation, and pleasure. People read fiction and non-fiction books on topics such as science, mathematics, language arts, health, history, technology, current events, finance, marketing, management, philosophy, music, arts, adventure, comedy, drama, romance, and personal hobbies. Students read a variety of books as an integral part of their studies and homework assignments. Some books impart directed useful knowledge and skills; other books are read just to improve reading skills. Business people read to improve personal skills, learn new ideas, and expand their knowledge base. Most if not all people read for enjoyment and leisure.
Reading is typically done in short to medium length sessions with duration of fifteen minutes to one hour or so. Most people cannot dedicate long, continuous blocks of time to read an entire book or finish an assignment. A person typically reads for a while, puts the book down to do something else, and then picks it up again to continue reading. The delay between reading sessions may be few minutes to several days. In order to be able to quickly and reliably turn to the correct page, most people mark the ending point of each reading session. Bookmarks are well-known and commonly used to mark one's place in a book. The bookmark can be as simple as a paper card, or more fanciful ribbon or decorative thin plastic or metal plate.
Simple bookmarks provide little or no information as to the time spent or coverage of any previous reading session. In some schools, students are required to track daily and cumulative reading times. Some business people try to dedicate a certain amount of time each day from their busy schedules to make some progress on their reading backlog. Other people find it necessary to time and track their reading sessions in order to avoid spending too much time reading and fail to meet some other meaningful or important task or obligation.
If the reader needs to track reading time, he or she typically uses a stand-alone stopwatch, clock, or general-purpose timer to record the time for each reading session. The reading times may be cumulated in a hand-written logbook or computer file. The time-tracking process becomes difficult to follow, especially if the stopwatch or timer is unavailable when the person decides to read. In situations where the parent is attempting to keep track of the student's reading times, the actual reading time and recorded time can become uncorrelated if the parent fails to notice when the student stops or takes a break. Parents are busy with their own activities and cannot watch the student every minute. If the student stops reading or shifts activity and the timer is still going, then the recorded time is not representative of the actual time spent reading. If the reading session is not immediately recorded, then certain reading times may be lost or recorded inaccurately.
A need exists to track individual and cumulative reading times in a convenient, accurate, and efficient manner.